Rachel Warrens aka Pstorm
Rachel currently appears in Superhero 102 and was a former participant in the original Superhero 101. Biography Rachel Warrens, or Pstorm, is the daughter of James and Danica Warrens, otherwise known as Burning Brawler and simply Danica. Though she does not make this widely known, she is not entirely from this time. Rachel traveled back from a future in which a villain group known as the Masters of Mayhem had successfully overthrown not only Arachnos but taken hold of Paragon City as their own, independent city-state. The people under their rule were more miserable than they ever could have been underneath Arachnos, used freely by the Masters of Mayhem for their experiments, tests and even just their amusement. In this world, Rachel was an orphan, her father's death being the pivotal moment in which the timeline turned down this path. Her mother was hunted down and killed just a few years after her birth and Rachel herself managed to disappear during the battle, fortunately being found and rescued by the Resistance movement that had sprung up under the Masters' tyrannical rule. The Resistance was led by a woman named Sybil, who noticed Rachel carried with her some potent psychic abilities waiting to be unlocked. In addition to this, she carried a pendant, a final gift from her father. Through this, she gained the ability to control weather patterns to ever-growing effect. The Resistance used this to great advantage in their cause, striking blows against the Masters of Mayhem time and time again. It was only a matter of time however until the regime had what it needed to strike a critical blow against the Resistance. There was little warning before cells all across the Masters' lands were snuffed out quickly and brutally. The only hope they had was to correct the events that had led to this timeline, and so Sybil chose Rachel, code-named Pstorm, to take the necessary coordinates and save their world, knowing just how close she really was to the events that had led to their tragedies. Sybil herself spear-headed an assault upon the Masters of Mayhem's capital in Grandville, attempting to draw the necessary amount of attention away from Portal Corp. in distant Paragon City. Rachel invaded with a small strike team in tow, hoping to make it to a working portal as quickly and with as little notice as possible. The battle that rang out in those halls was heated; Pstorm ran ahead of the fighting to the open portal chamber, getting locked in a struggle with the Masters assassin Final Glimpse. She narrowly escaped the fight, coming out into our drastically different timeline. That was over two years ago and in those two years it seems Rachel has forgotten much of what life was like back there. Though at first she was a clear product of the world she had known her whole life, the joys of knowing both her parents once again has pulled her away from the hardships she had to grow up through. After preventing the event that was to cause her father's death, she grew comfortable in the time she had grown to call her own. To this day, she still continues her training, only now with her father and mother, and keeps a close eye on the activity of the Masters of Mayhem. Powers and Abilities Weather Control Pstorm has the ability to manipulate and create weather patterns, thanks to an amulet she inherited after her father's death. Although the powers are magically granted, the storms she creates are very much the raw power of nature. Not long ago, Rachel bonded to her amulet and though it is always close at hand, she no longer needs to necessarily wear it on her person to make use of its abilities. Psionic Assault Pstorm also posses a mutant ability to project her psionic energies into potent attacks that can seriously wound the minds of her opponents. Trained by another psionicist, Sybil, Pstorm had her abilities unlocked and honed at an early age. However, there was only so far she could be safely taken, young as she was. Now there is no telling where her potential stops and she is continually growing in strength and control. Mind Reading Perhaps as a side effect of the early unlocking of her psionic abilities, Pstorm has the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her. For the majority of her life, this was a power beyond her control. Unless properly guarded, she could hear the thoughts of any within a certain radius of her as if they were speaking openly. If she were to actually concentrate on a target, chances are she could peek in to their most private moments even from great distances. The Resistance used this apparent blessing to potent effect, coordinating strikes and spying on Masters' installations, Sybil herself being incapable of touching minds in that way without actual physical contact. Once Rachel joined our time however, its tactical advantages became outweighed by the social and physical pressures hearing so many minds placed on her. With the aid of her father and some well known psionic heroes, Pstorm learned to control this ability and shut out the voices when it was not necessary to hear them. This has had the unfortunate side-effect of lowering her awareness of other people's emotions. Having unwittingly relied on being able to hear every thought of each person she encounters, Rachel Warrens has become somewhat oblivious to all but the most obvious of signals broadcasted by those around her.